How to schedule a report email with a CSV attachment of search results every 4 hours?

[Laya123]

Hi,

Can any one help me on how to schedule a report with an attachment (csv) and email to my boss every 4 hours with last 4 hours of search results? I used cron expression 0 */4 * * *, but it's not generating a report every 4 hours.

Example: Email a report for every 4 hours; first email has to be sent at 4am for the results of last 4 hours (1am - 4am). The second email has to be sent at 8am for the results of 5am to 8am

Please help me to do this

Thanks in advance

[woodcock · Accepted solution]

The cron syntax works like this.

.---------------- minute (0 - 59)
|  .------------- hour (0 - 23)
|  |  .---------- day of month (1 - 31)
|  |  |  .------- month (1 - 12) OR jan,feb,mar,apr ...
|  |  |  |  .---- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0 or 7) OR sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat
|  |  |  |  |
*  *  *  *  *

To run your search every minute on 4 hour intervals (every minute within every 4th hour), use this cron.

* */4 * * *

To run your search once every 4 hours (on the zero minute), use this cron.

0 */4 * * *

You can also specify an enumerated list, if you need to drop off midnight (your example may mean this), like this:

0 4,8,12,16,20 * * *

[woodcock]

Please "Accept" this answer.

[martin_mueller]

Yes, 0 */4 * * * will run once every four hours, at zero minutes past 0, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20.

[Laya123]

Hi,

I am bit confused can you tell me

0 */4 * * * - does this cron help to get an email every 4 hours?

Thanks

[Laya123]

Thanks for your immediate response

it means email will go for every 4hours with last 4hours of results right

Thanks

[woodcock]

The "last 4 hours" part is controlled by the time specifier which should be -4h@h.